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what i read, what i thought

Spring Break started with a snow day as you may have read in my last post: students. Stuck inside for a few hours, I hit the ground running on my long list of books to read as quickly as I can within the next 14 days. It is so decadent to know that from now until March 25 my only priorities are to see people I love, relax, and read. The first book tackled was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Yes, this book is technically a young adult book, but before you simply dismiss it hear me out.

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together until all living humans read the book. And then there are books… which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.”—Hazel, from The Fault in Our Stars

Revealing the full plot of the book would be an injustice to the complex waters that Green emerges the reader. Teasing out the intersections of love, friendship, sarcasm, coming-of-age, mortality, passion, and purpose, Green’s protagonists, Hazel and Augustus, demand to be brought to life and demand the reader’s utmost attention. It is a bittersweet, poignant story. At times genuinely reflective of angsty teenage melodrama but it is more often about the finding meaning while facing oblivion. Green’s voice defies the categorization of young adult with its raw glimpse into the world of Hazel and Augustus.

“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities … There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbound set. But Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity.” —Hazel, from The Fault in Our Stars